Chapter 15 – The Chase
San Francisco, U.S.A.
It was a long drive home for Cedric and his friends as their vacation came to a close. Cedric went to bed early and is just waking up now. He looks at the clock and can't believe it is almost noon. He starts stretching in his bed. That was a good trip and it felt so good to finally sleep in his own bed. He is back at home. Not just any home. This is the home that he and Eldon grew up in. Their parents chose to move to Ireland and retire there, leaving the house to them. But Eldon prefers to stay and work in New York.
Cedric gets up and starts preparing some breakfast. He then checks his messages on The Node. Cedric also checks his messages and checks in on his friends at the open source alternative for The Node. But he is not able to convince all of his friends and relatives to switch to the less marketed but more open web and social net gateway. There is one message from Bobby, telling him he left his scuba diving and camping gear in the trunk of Jake's car. After finishing his breakfast he spends the rest of the day unpacking. As he is about to put away his luggage, he notices the pendant in the internal side pocket. He smiles, thinking how he was initially concerned, thinking what the crazy lady was saying is true. He wonders what caused the lady to become a schizophrenic like that. Maybe that pendant contains some family memories that would answer that question. He debated whether to check the content or not since it might contain her personal and private information. Then he wonders if her family knows her fate. Maybe he can find some clue and contact her family just to let them know he saw her at that Vancouver hostel. Convinced that he is doing the right thing, he takes the pendant and brings it to his computer unit.
He turns on the unit and the display is projected to his wall instantaneously. He starts transmitting the content of the memory chip in the pendant. There is some text file that looks like some papers on research about health issues. He skips that and sees a format that looks like a video file. He quickly searchs the format and downloads a player. He starts to play the file on the pendant. What appears on the screen shocks him. He quickly searches the face of the woman in the video using The Node and finds a picture and name that matches the person on the video. The picture is that of the head of Health Canada. His eyes turn into shock remembering everything the lady said. She is not crazy. She is panicking because someone wants her bad, really bad. The implications are enormous. Someone found a cure for cancer and they want to keep it out of the public's hand.
Cedric decides to also search for the man in the video and The Node returns the message 'no record was found.' He finds that odd. Cedric suddenly notices his camera blinking a bit, which causes him to frown. He quickly taps his keyboard to bring up his custom made firewall. It reports that a connection has been made to The Node from his camera. He is livid. There is an unauthorized transmission from his camera. He starts thinking about the possibility that his search for the Health Canada's ministry or that man in the video might have alerted someone. To be safe he thinks he should get out of his place and stay off The Node right now. He quickly makes a copy and hides it in his bedroom's secret wall. He then takes the pendant, e-mails his friends at the open source gateway that he has a world changing revelation on a memory chip and will be sending it following this message. He also notes that he thinks The Node is compromised and someone is monitoring his activity, so he asks them to quickly propagate the video. He quickly sends the message and starts uploading the video to his site. But his internet suddenly goes down. He curses and takes the pendant and starts running to his car. Most of his friend receive the message right away and are curious what kind of trouble Cedric has gotten himself into this time.
He quickly gets into Jake's car, takes out Bobby's scuba gear and backpacks from the trunk. He instinctively puts on the wet suit and throws the rest of the bag to the passenger seat. Cedric sets the car to auto drive and starts calling his brother Eldon. He gets the answering machine. “Eldon pick up please.” He says frantically hoping his brother is there. But there is no answer. “Listen, I found a pendant implicating a top ranking government official from Canada. She is involved in a serious cover up. I hid the chip in your favourite childhood hiding place and I have the original memory chip pendant.” His phone suddenly goes dead. The message display says “invalid account.” Cedric quickly removes the cellphone parts on his watch and throws it out the window. He keeps his watch with a memory chip in it. The watch should not be able to connect to any network anymore. Meanwhile in New York's police precinct, Eldon has just got out of the gym shower and put his watch back when he sees a new message notification.
Police precincts in the U.S. and around the world suddenly get a notification of threat level one, an indication under the Motherland Defence Initiative that a clear and present danger exist. This usually involves shoot to kill orders against the threat. And Cedric's face comes up indicating his last position.
Cedric quickly disables the GPS on his car. But not satisfied with disabling it through software, he starts removing the wire that connects the car's control system to the small GPS unit near the floor of the car. He throws the unit out the window.
Military bases have been alerted and the president gives order to use the drone with Lucifer's Fork missile, the first time the new updated drone engages in combat on U.S. soil against its citizens. Back in the cyberwarfare control room of the conglomerate, Morris taps Luitger to acknowledge him for a job well done on cracking the police system in such a short time. Cedric's profile is inserted in place of the existing suspect deemed to be from the order of the three eleven. Cedric has been tagged as one of the leaders and the threat level was raised to 1. Although the police have never seen him before, the order from the president removes any doubts.
Back in New York's police precinct, Eldon gets back to his desk and is surprised to see a worldwide alert. He quickly pulls out the notice and sees his brother's face. “Is this some kind of a prank?!” He yells. He rushes out of his office so fast on his way to the police chief office that everyone turns to see what is going on but barely catches any of his shadow as he zooms by.
Cedric hears on the news that a manhunt is on the way. He pulls up the news and sees his face on it. He can hear sirens going off everywhere and one is close by, so he decides to turn into the back alley. Orders have been given to all the cars to stay off the road. Some are allowed to proceed to head home or work. But people who have not left their place yet have been told to stay put. In few minutes, cars on the road start thinning out until it almost looks like a ghost town.
Cedric accelerates to try to cross the Golden Gate bridge. He knows he is most vulnerable there especially with the road practically devoid of cars now. As he is speeding up to 200 mph he can see a drone approaching. He floors it but the drone is closing in very quickly. There is a red light blinking which signifies acquiring target. Cedric knows when it stops, it would mean the target is locked and the missile will fire. He also knows that the car cannot outrun the missile. He quickly reaches for and opens the bag on the passenger's seat. He takes out the flares that they brought with them for the trip. He sees the light blinking faster and faster, meaning it will be firing soon. He is almost at the Golden Gate bridge. He opens the sunroof and lights up the flares then puts on the brake when he sees the light on the drone stopped. He quickly puts the car on the speed reverse used for their reverse drag race. The flares fire off ahead of the car as the car reverses in direction at 250 mph. The Lucifer's missile fires off following the flares. Cedric swerve the car to the other lane from that of the approaching missile. The missile then hits the side rail of the bridge blowing a hole on the concrete road and vaporizing the steel. The drone keeps moving farther ahead and then starts to slow down. Cedric knows the person controlling the drone would probably disengage the auto heat seeking mode and engage several missiles right at him this time. He floors the pedal again as the drone approaches. The car is headed directly toward the drone. And as Cedric approaches the fiery mess left b
y the first missile, he switches on auto drive and points it toward the hole where the side rail steel used to be. He quickly grabs the bag with scuba diving gear and removes his seat belt. The car automatically slows down and turns and goes across the bridge as the missile comes toward the car. The car takes off and goes down the bridge starting its 200 feet descent into into the water. The missile hits the side railing of the bridge and explodes, vaporizing the steel and shaking the bridge, creating a much bigger hole on the road. Some of the debris from the bridge and missile has hit the back of the car and the trunk catches fire. There is a strong wind so Cedric hopes that will help slow the fall but not enough as to affect his ability to control the position of his fall. He quickly pushes the door open with the backpack containing the scuba gear in his hand. He jumps to the side, away from the car and down into the water. Cedric drops the bag into the water away from him and keeps himself in a vertical position to make sure his body is straight and feet first into the water with both arms raised. All of this is accomplished within a matter of seconds. The water feels cold so he quickly swims away, putting the oxygen on and diving deeper to avoid detection.
Cedric swims as far away as he can. The president gives orders to use Sonar Blast, which could have a debilitating or fatal effect on mammals. Beached whales showed injury to the brain following a previous blast. Helicopters can be heard overhead. Cedric swims up to near surface close to the shore, staying underwater and hears everything has quieted down. Sonar Blast was initiated. Cedric gets up to a marina, hiding behind a parked yacht. The sun has already set. He cautiously gets back on land. The sonar blast hits but not before Cedric gets out of the water.
He quickly dashes to a junkyard nearby and looks through several cars and finally finds a newly delivered car with the key still inside. There is no auto drive but it has a transponder and license plate still on. Cedric throws out the the transponder and starts driving.
Cedric continues to drive for more than 3 hours hiding in dark alleys or instantly parking and shutting down cars when a police car or helicopters pass by. He eventually reaches Lake Tahoe and decides to camp there for the night.
Cedric builds a campfire and decides to sleep and worry about what to do tomorrow. He wakes up to a pristine lake. He quickly packs up and brings his scuba gear to be refilled at a scuba gear outlet. Feeling hungry, he goes through the side door to a restaurant. While paying for his meal, he instinctively looks up at the camera, which looks like one of those new network security systems. He lowers his head and quickly takes a mountain board, helmet and hunting camouflage tarps and clothing, pays and leaves. But it is too late. The image has been sent to a security control centre, which automatically scans faces for any fugitives. The computer recognizes his face and alerts authorities.
Cedric quickly ditches his car and goes up one of the mountains that is used as a ski slope during the winter. He climbs as far as he can to get a better view of any approaching search party. There is a good breeze of wind. He decides to lighten the load discarding cooking utensils and covering them with cutoff part of the camouflage tarps and using rocks to keep it in place. He continues to climb until he reaches the top. He hears a helicopter approaching and tries to lay low, covering everything under the tarp and hoping it will do its job. Down the hill, the wind blows off the tarp, exposing the metal utensils. The helicopter quickly approaches and seeing no one there, drops its ladder and several men in black clothes with firearms start climbing down with the helicopter gunship pointing down in case there are any signs of the fugitive. Soon the commando unit reaches the abandoned utensils. They look up and point the helicopter to the top of the mountain. The helicopter quickly turns and Cedric peeking from the camouflage tarp wrap around him sees it. He quickly takes out several flares and lights one up, firing at the helicopter as it appears on the mountain peak. The helicopter pilot is totally caught off guard and over corrected. The gunman fires the mounted machine gun but ends up firing on the pilot as it makes a sudden turn. The flares miss, but the pilot was dead. And the helicopter drops like a rock and hits one of the mountains and explodes. Cedric knows he does not have much time before the commando catches up with him. So he puts on the mountain board and started going down using his experience from snowboarding in the ski slopes of Alberta. There is a steep side going down and he is able to ride it down with ease. He takes a spill at the end of the steep hill, but he manages to slow down first. He tumbles a bit but remains unhurt and picks up the mountain board and continues to slide downhill. By the time the commandos reach the top of the mountain, they can hardly see a moving tiny shape that blends in with the brown shrubs of the mountain. Cedric reaches the bottom and starts hiking in the woods. Cedric’s intent is to get out of here alive, but he decides to record a message for Eldon on his watch just in case.
The commandos radioed in Cedric's position and the ground troops immediately get into action taking Cedric's used napkins and fork from the restaurant. They let the dogs sniff the stuff Cedric has used and set them loose.
Cedric hears dogs barking and decides to jump into the water with his scuba gear. The water is clear, especially near the shore. So he tries to stay as low as he can. As he approaches the shore, there are nice round white rocks that on a normal day he would stop to appreciate. But this is not a normal day. Peeking and seeing no one close by, he takes a chance and swims close to the shore. Then he hears dogs barking near the shore. He is already near the shore and the water is so clear that it won't be hard for them to see him even if he dives now. Luckily there are rocks that form into a tunnel under the water. He quickly dives and hides below one of these tunnel rock formations. He tries to relax and slow his breathing and use as little air as possible, conserving the supply in the oxygen tank. He rests nicely in a huge tunnel few feet down. Above this tunnel are several rocks formations protruding well above the surface that on happier days Cedric would have used to dive down to the clear lake.
Eldon arrives in San Francisco. He immediately goes to Cedric's house and finds the hidden wall partially open. It has come loose recently and only he and Cedric know how to pull and push to make it close properly. Eldon wonders if Cedric was in such a hurry that he did not bother closing it properly. Highly unlikely if you are trying to hide something you don't want others to find. He searches inside the wall and finds nothing. Eldon's heart sinks. He wonders how they know about the hidden wall. His phone rings and it is his precinct’s police chief. No luck on getting them to call off the search since the president is directly involved. Eldon is yelling angrily into the phone. The chief tells him the latest about the sighting of Cedric. Eldon rushes out of the house and drives off to Lake Tahoe.
Cedric has been there for hours and decides to come out and see if the coast is clear. The sun has set and the shore is now dark. Nobody seems to be there so Cedric slowly moves into shore. As he slowly approaches a car parked up the shore, a spotlight comes on and several armed men appeared. He is about to raise his hand, but shots are fired, hitting him right in the left side of his chest. Cedric reacts by raising his hand to touch the wounded part. Then another shot is fired into his neck resulting in blood splurting out. “Cease fire!” the leader yells. He has not given the command to fire and though shoot-to-kill is now an option for this level of threat under the MDI, he does not deem it necessary. But two of his men have already fired. Cedric falls to the ground. One of the officers who shot Cedric approaches him and quickly pulls off the pendant from his neck as instructed by his contact earlier in the day. The leader of the group calls for paramedics. But it is too late. For one of the other officers who fired the shots, it is good riddance for someone who dares attack America. As far as he is concerned, it is a point for team U.S.A. and zero for the elusive order of three eleven.
Eldon's police siren blares all the way from San Francisco. But he arrives a bit too late. They are loading his brother's body by the time he arrives. He rushes to see the body and hopes it was someone else. Upon seeing it was h
is brother, he screams and cries “No! No! No!” He pushes the paramedics away. He hugs his brother shaking him, as if that would wake him up. The law enforcement officials learn that Eldon is a New York police officer. They wonder why a police officer would be so distraught over the death of one of America's top enemies. After an hour, they try to separate Eldon but he draws his gun and everyone backs off. Eldon tries to look for a pendant that Cedric had mentioned in his message but he can't find it. He takes his watch and hopes he can find some clues there. Eldon's boss has called the officer in charge on the scene and explained Eldon's connection and how there might be a mistake. The officer in charge is shocked. How could that be? The instructions were clear, the record was clear, the president was on the ball right away, so it must have been really urgent. He hopes the New York chief is mistaken. He has to be. It is just a brother unable to accept the fact that his brother took the wrong path in life and got mixed up with the wrong crowd. Only the paramedics and few police are left when Eldon finally let go, rising with his gun in his hand. He points at the police chief. The rest of the officers draw their guns. But the police chief asks them to drop their guns. Eldon with fire and tears in his eyes asks, “Who fired the shot?”
“We are going to look into it.” The chief officer responds.
“Bullshit! Who fired the shots!?”
“They are no longer here. They are back at the precinct and they will be questioned I assure you.”
“You did not answer my question. Who fired the shots?! I want names.”
“I can't do that. You are welcome to come to the precinct with us and see them.”
Eldon goes back beside his brother's body and says, “I will avenge your dead. Don't you worry.”
Back at the precinct, Eldon sees the two police officers from behind a one way mirror. He wants to charge in but they will not let him. The chief officers convince him to let the law take its course and that the two are going nowhere.
Eldon is exhausted and decides to let it rest for now, seeing as they are being interrogated. He goes back to San Francisco to look after his brother’s affairs and try to find that chip that his brother said would implicate Canada's Health Minister. On the drive back to San Francisco he feels so empty, like a part of him is gone forever. It feels like there is a big hole and emptiness. His heart aches as if there are salty tears flowing out, making it sting. The feeling is inexplicable, it drains all energy from him making him feels so helpless. His stomach churns, his whole body is in turmoil. Tears just flow out of his eyes uncontrollably like a broken faucet. He feels like he is going to lose his mind every time he thinks about his brothers smile. His stubborn and adventurous attitude. His fearlessness and compassion. Eldon would suddenly break out and scream every now and then, relieving pressure and frustration that have been building up. He then remembers Cedric's watch and takes the memory out and put it in his car's player. There is a recorded voice. So he plays it.
“Eldon, my brother. I hope you don't get this and that I will just end up deleting this once everything is back to normal. But if you get this, I just want you to know that if I should die, then go on and mourn for me and let it out. But don't remain sorrowful for long. I am not afraid of dying. These evil people's days will come. Everything is in the pendant. Take care of yourself and don't do anything harsh. Don't become corrupt in fighting them. Remember what I said when we were in Alberta? Although your memory might cause you sorrow to think that I have been taken so suddenly and in such an awful manner. But this is just a small blip on the wider scope of things. We will be victorious in the end. My spirit, or energy or whatever you want to call it, will live on. That, my brother, they won't be able to extinguish, ever!”
Eldon was not sure if that is supposed to comfort him, but it is not working, as he feel his heart continue to break. He was not aware that such sorrow, sadness and desperation were possible. It feels like it is going to tear him apart. He remembers telling his brothers not to get involved with what Cedric would call 'fighting injustices.' “It does not affect us,” he once told his brother. “You can't take care of everybody in the world,” he pleaded. But tonight, he does not blame his brother for standing up for his conviction. Eldon promises he will get to the bottom of things. No matter where the mastermind of his brother's death may be. He will get them whether they are in the U.S. or not.